Central office project goes to Tarboro firm

Published 12:00 am Saturday, June 28, 2014

Not only did members of the Rowan-Salisbury Board of Education approve a location for the district’s new central office, they also approved a construction manager at risk to oversee its construction.
The contract was awarded to Barnhill Contracting Co. of Tarboro.
Barnhill was selected from five firms that submitted applications for the job. All five firms were interviewed.
Assistant Superintendent of Operations Anthony Vann said he prefers using a construction manager at risk instead of the traditional “hard bid” method.
“It’s as transparent as you can get,” he said. “A construction manager at risk firm is not allowed to self-perform the work”.
The construction manager at risk takes the plans for a building and sends them out for bids to the subcontractors in their database. Then, the firm evaluates the proposals and puts together an offer with a guaranteed maximum price, Vann explained.
“Everyone knows up front what everyone’s making,” he added. “It kind of assures that the number is the number.”
The school board advertised the job locally and throughout the state and appointed a committee to head up the selection process.
The district received five proposals, and the committee interviewed each of them.
Each interview lasted approximately an hour, with 40 minutes for the firm to pitch its proposal and a 15-minute question and answer session.
Vann said it was a “long day, but good day.”
“They were all capable,” he said, but “one raised to the top.”
Vann added, Barnhill best “fit our needs on this project.”
“They have the resources and the manpower. They have done 48 construction manager at risk projects over the past few years”
Vann said the committee was impressed that the company “already had a lot of things considered and worked out.”
School board member Susan Cox, who was on the selection committee, said there was a “30-day plan already in place for us.”
The committee unanimously selected Barnhill.
Now that a location has been secured and the construction manager at risk has been selected, Vann said the district is shooting to have the central office completed in October or November of 2015.
“The first part of this project really is the unknown,” he said.
Drilling for soil samples started Thursday after the school board approved the property swap that secured the property on the 500-block of North Main Street for the central office.
The district’s architect, Bill Burgin, must tailor his preexisting plans for the central office to the new property.
Vann estimated that process should take roughly two months, then expects Barnhill to take approximately six weeks to put together a plan and generate a guaranteed maximum price.
“Then we have to go to the LGC,” he said.
Once the Local Government Commission approves the project, construction can begin.
At that point in time, Vann said, he will be able to make a more accurate estimate of when the building will be done.